Skopje, 23 July 2021 (MIA) – Former head of the secret police Sasho Mijalkov and six members of a now defunct unit of plain-clothes police unit were acquitted Friday after being tried in the case commonly referred to as “Torture” for the way former interior minister and party leader Ljube Boshkovski was arrested in 2011. The council of judges, helmed by the judge Aleksandra Ristovska, acquitted Sasho Mijalkov, Ivica Anchevski, Petar Miloshevski, Novica Stankovski, Filip Atanasov, Jovica Bocevski and Metush Shabani saying prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants had committed the crime they had been charged with. The case involving the arrest of Ljube Boshkovski was returned to a phase of supplementation of the evidence procedure after judge Ristovska, the presiding judge in the “Torture” trial, didn’t hand down a verdict in June. Initially, it was scheduled to take place on June 17. According to Ristoska, the court’s stumbling block to reach a decision was the lack of ‘individualisation of the acts’ and ‘explication of the vital contribution of each defendant.’ These disputable issues, she said, hadn’t been made clear enough to the court throughout the process of evidence presentation. “It is the first and final reason why the court requested additional evidence,” the judge said, adding that the indictment as regard the inciting done by the defendant Sasho Mijalkov to the court remained an assumption. Speaking to reporters after the verdict, public prosecutor Ljubomir Lape said the indictment was ‘clear enough’ detailing all the acts. “A message is being sent that excessive force during arrests is not against the law,” he said. In modern and democratic societies, Lape said, such arrests are punishable by law. “The court failed to punish the perpetrators despite being presented with clear and unambiguous evidence,” he said adding the verdict will be appealed. Providing further evidence, prosecutors argued that there was torture during Boshkoski’s arrest as “revanchism”. Boshkoski didn’t resist during arrest while police were using excessive force. After lying on the ground near a portable toilet close to a well-known restaurant in Skopje, he was returned to the site in order for TV crews to film him as a way to humiliate him. It caused physiological suffering, the prosecution argued.